The Blue Mile by Kim Kelly Page B

it up into my pocket when I see what’s written on it:
    LABOURERS WANTED FOR SYDNEY HARBOUR BRIDGEWORKS. BOILERWORKER & IRONWORKER GANG ASSISTANTS. PERMANENT POSITIONS TO SUITABLE APPLICANTS. £4 /17/6 to £6/5/-. PER WEEK. APPLY IN PERSON AT PUBLIC WORKS DEPARTMENT, PUBLIC ENTRANCE, BRIDGE STREET.
    I stare at it like it could well be £6/5/- there in my hand. Even less believable that it’s for labouring. Too good to be true, and you’d have to be registered to go for it, wouldn’t you, but I’ll have to see about that for myself, won’t I. After I’ve taken Ag to Hordern’s, and taken myself to a barber. I need a shave and a haircut before I apply in person for anything. I could do with a new shirt, too, if I can stretch our resources, wasn’t wearing my best when we set off yesterday evening: it’s grey, and not originally that colour, missing a button and starting to rip through at the elbows.
    I look out the window and past all the la-di-da arcades and restaurants I see the great shopping palace of Hordern’s coming up ahead at the next cross-street, and I grab Ag up again: ‘Here’s the stop for buckle shoes.’ And as we get near it I see there’s a sale banner strung on the corner verandah posts.
    â€˜ BARGAINS ALL DAY FRIDAY – UNTIL 9 PM. LAST CHANCE BEFORE CHRISTMAS ! ’ Ag reads it out, almost shouting with the excitement of it, and I say: ‘Isn’t that lucky for us, then?’
    As well as a good majority of the women of Sydney, I see. The place is swarming, and I stand at the doors for a moment, doubtful we can go in. Swarming with flowers: these women in their shiny shoes, their hats of every colour. They’re all just people, I tell myself, ordinary people, wives and mothers hunting for a bargain, but it looks like another world. It is another world. We can’t afford it here; this is not a place for us.
    â€˜Yo-Yo, see,’ Ag is pointing at a sign inside the doors. ‘Children’s wear on the third floor.’ She’s a good girl with her reading, isn’t she? And that gets me through the doors, knowing that Sister Joe will be missing Ag today, this last day of school, missing out on never giving Ag a prize for her reading, the sour old bitch. Ag’s never going back to that shitful school. She’s getting buckle shoes instead.
    Up the escalators we go then, and I can say that I have never been so put off my stride in such a way as this in my life. The bright lights, and the noise, and all these women going everywhere, with all their perfumes enough to knock you about. Still, they are so busy at what they’re getting on with, they don’t seem to see us, the unshaven lout and the shoeless child. Who slept under a tree in a park last night. Please, don’t let that be where Aggie sleeps tonight.
    â€˜Oh Yoey, look at the red ones! Can I get them? Please?’ she says and we’ve barely stepped off the escalator.
    â€˜Near half price, those ones are, dear.’ A lady comes up beside us, an older lady, small and slight with round eyeglasses, and a keen eye for a customer.
    I say to her: ‘We want a pair of them then,’ and I hold her stare for second: Don’t you chuck us out.
    But she just smiles over them eyeglasses at us: ‘What an adorable imp you have there, look at those lush dark curls.’ Not clear if she’s meaning me or Ag, or both. We’re all the same to her anyway, I suppose, and by the time she’s finished with us, Ag’s got a pair of red buckle shoes, a dress with yellow flowers on it, a blue cardigan, and socks for a bob thrown in too. All for less than a pound and she looks something better than adorable. She’s looking down at the new buckle shoes on her feet as I pay for them: this is the best day of her life. I don’t care that we can’t afford it. She looks like one of them rosy-cheeked little girls on a billboard